Topic Proposal, Final Paper

Overview: You must submit a proposal of your paper and tell me your topic, why you chose it, your preliminary thesis sentence, and what you plan to argue and prove in your paper. This proposal must include a clearly labeled thesis statement. In a nutshell, by the time I read your proposal, I should fully understand your paper topic, paper's thesis, and general structure and major arguments.


NOTE: This is a unique assignment because it is mandatory. I will not grade any research paper until I have approved the topic, and I will only approve the topic after I've read a formal proposal submitted to this assignment. If you fail to submit this assignment, you will get a grade of zero on your final research paper. Even if you miss the due date and submit it late for no points, you must submit this for me to grade the final draft of this research paper.
 

Due: Monday, November 23


Mandatory Elements: Your proposal must contain the following--

1) Thesis. A clearly labeled preliminary thesis statement for your paper. This thesis can, and should, change as you do more research, but I want to see your starting point here.

2) Article. You must clearly identify the Navigating America anthology article you have chosen to include and clearly discuss why you chosethis article.

3) Book. You discuss the 2nd class book you have selected and how you plan to fold this in to the research paper.

4) Word Count. This proposal must be at least 250 words long and follow all rules of grammar and punctuation.

5) Rough Outline. I need to see a very ROUGH outline of some major points you plan to include. This will show me that structure and specific arguments are already being mapped out by you. I expect this outline to be very informal and subject to change.  NOTE: This outline must be an actual numbered, indented outline as illustrated in class, even if it is really short.

6) MLA.  This must be in proper MLA format.


Things to consider including (not all mandatory, but some good ideas):

*) The major ideas/arguments you'll be making.

*) What was interesting to you about your corporation of choice?

*) An idea of the logical structure of your paper--that is to say, the order of the points you're going to make.

*) A discussion of major sources you plan to include, including any NA articles or preliminary research you've done so far.

*) Areas you're not sure about and questions you have on the topic. If you have concerns or questions, put them at the very bottom of your proposal, and I can give suggestions when I grade this…